Bedtime
by Yamori
Summary: When a nine-year-old Ryou has a bad dream, what's he gonna do? Make his yami tell him a bedtime story, of course! Will Bakura succeed? Fluff. Pure fluff. Bakura x Ryou. Kinda. Shounen-ai!


A/N:

DBS: Howdy, folks! Ello, chaps! What ho, old bean(s)?

S.H. and Mink-chan: o.o

DBS: n.n So, I'm out with a new one-shot. Fluffy drabble. Thing. Er.

Mink-chan: I had nothing to do with it. -saunters off-

S.H.: I poked at it! n.n

DBS: -nods- This story is fairly humorous and uber fluffy...Bakura x Ryou, I guess. Well, sorta. Anyway, it wasn't my idea. The idea was that of my friend, who'd like me to call her Dragonia. Also, mah good pal Anime-Fan Meepa betaed for me. -glomps- Arigatou! Um. And since your boyfriend disappeared, S.H., please do the disclaimer.

S.H.: Gladly! Dilandau's Best Slayer and her crew (crew being everyone mentioned in this author's note) do not own Yuugiou in any way or form. So, if any of us ever say that we do own it, then you can stab us to death with sporks. And possibly get arrested, but that's a chance you're willing to take, ne? -skips away after his boyfriend-

DBS: On with the fic! n.n

It was ten o'clock at night, and he felt fear. Was he supposed to feel fear after eight? Not at all. Which meant something was wrong. Thus, he materialized out of his sanctuary, the Sennen Ring.

Nothing before him appeared out of order. He stood in a room that looked like any nine-year-old boy's bedroom. Stuffed animals and childish manga here or there, a shirt hanging out of a dresser drawer...perhaps the only thing out of place was the Ring itself, which had been set on the bedside table. The artifact looked sinister...not something you'd give a child. Especially one such as the boy who lived in this room. So delicate...so innocent. Like an angel. A shattered angel. The dark spirit tested the word on his tongue.

"Tenshi." He would have smiled, had he remembered how. It had been so long since he had been happy...so long since he felt no rage or anger. And yet...emerging out of the Ring after thousands of years, he did not take out his anger on the child. His hikari. His aibou. His tenshi.

He heard something shift and looked over his shoulder at the bundle of covers on the little one's bed. The boy within the cocoon of blankets emerged, shivering. "'Kura?" he said softly.

Another smile graced the dark one's lips and he took a step towards the bed. "Hey, brat," he said. Smile though he might, he was still a dark spirit, and had to do _some_ insulting. "Why are you awake?"

"I had a bad dream," the young boy said. His yami raised an eyebrow, and the child continued. "It made my heart hurt."

Bakura scowled. "Ryou...." he sighed, and pushed down the urge to tell him off for being weak. "What was it about?"

"Mama and Amane," he replied, looking down at the sheet he was fiddling with. At this, the spirit frowned. Loss of family was actually something he understood, being as he had witnessed his family slaughtered when he was young. Ryou's mother and younger sister had died in a car accident not too long ago. The child had been placed into an orphanage because his father was away on archaeological digs all the time. Bakura had possessed the body of a young woman and had adopted his other half, only to kill the woman later. So, technically, Ryou lived alone, although Bakura provided for the boy by stealing everything he needed. He didn't know why he did it...he just...did.

"Forget about them. They're gone." the spirit said icily, though Ryou was too young and naïve to notice.

"Gone?" Ryou asked curiously, then smiled. "No they aren't! They're right here!" He reached to open the drawer of his bedside table and pulled out a picture frame, then handed it to his yami. "See?" he said, beaming. Bakura took the picture and stared at it. There were both his mother and little sister, smiling through the glass to him. He blinked. Apparently, Ryou knew nothing about death, either. Silly boy...he'd have to learn. "The lady at the orphanage said that they're watching me," Ryou continued, "But that I can't see them. Is that true, 'Kura?"

Bakura frowned again, and handed the frame back to his hikari, who hugged it and replaced it in the drawer before shutting it. 'No one told me that...' he thought with a blank expression.

Ryou cocked his head to the side. "'Kura?"

Bakura was brought back to reality by his light's little voice. He stared at his small look-alike for a while, then snorted. "Ryou, go back to sleep," he commanded.

Ryou looked down, eyes filled with sadness. "I...can't."

"Why not?" his yami spat. Again, Ryou ignored his harsh tone. Both did not speak for a moment, but Ryou suddenly piped up.

"Yami...can you tell me a bedtime story?" he asked innocently.

Bakura's eyes widened and the corner of his mouth twitched. "Wha...what?!" he sputtered, while Ryou just smiled up at him.

"Tell me a bedtime story!" the light one repeated blissfully. He was too young to be aware to the fact that he was speaking to a dark spirit...a being of naught but evil. Besides that, said dark spirit had never told a bedtime story, let alone heard one.

"Uh..." was all Bakura could say to the bizarre request. How he longed to say no...or snap it, rather. But he couldn't. Ryou was giving him the 'I'm an irresistibly cute hikari eyes,' which would in a few years become very famous amongst him and two other spirits. "Err..." he continued to make incoherent noises.

"Please tell me a story...onegai...."

"Eh..." he let out one more of these nonsense sounds before composing himself. "What...what kind of story?" Dammit! Why couldn't he have said no?

Ryou's smile grew. "Well, stories always start with, 'Once upon a time.' And..." he paused to think. "And they usually have a hero and a princess...and a dragon!" he said, giggling in delight. His yami winced.

"Eh...okay. Well, here's my version of a...bedtime story," Bakura stated. Dear Ra, why was he doing this?

"Yay!" Ryou laughed, clapping his hands. He stopped suddenly, then moved forward a bit. Bakura raised his eyebrow as Ryou gestured for him to come closer. As he did so, Ryou whispered, "You're gonna start off with 'once upon a time,' right?"

Bakura would have chuckled...if he wasn't a dark spirit. "Sure," came his reply. He took a deep breath and plopped down on the foot of the boy's bed, legs crossed and arms folded. "Once upon a time..." he began. He paused, thinking, then said the line again. "Once upon a time, there was a great thief king."

At this, Ryou gasped. "But thieves are bad!" he exclaimed.

Bakura snorted. "Thieves aren't all bad...they're just...misunderstood." Again, he paused, lost in his thoughts. Ryou waited patiently for him to continue, being the polite little boy that he was. Finally, when Bakura spoke, he said, "In this story, the thief is the hero."

Ryou's eyes widened. "Heroes are good guys!"

"Right." Bakura said, nodding. "So you see, thieves aren't all that bad." The look of awe on Ryou's face was priceless. "Shall I continue?"

The boy nodded eagerly.

"Right. Now, this thief king's name was Bakura--"

"_You're_ the thief king?"

"Yes," the said king growled. "And stop interrupting!" Ryou slapped a hand to his mouth and nodded. "Bakura was very, very sexy," he continued, disregarding his hikari's look of puzzlement, "and was known all throughout Egypt for his looks and danger. He traveled across the deserts alone, his only companion being some stolen horse or the other. He went from royal tomb to royal tomb, defiling the graves and stealing the treasure buried with the important persons. He did this all for one reason: to spite the damnable pharaoh."

"Da...damnibble. What's damnibble mean, 'Kura?" Ryou inquired sweetly.

"Er...never mind that," the yami muttered, becoming conscious of the fact that this -was- a child he was speaking to. "You see, the pharaoh, who was named Atemu, had done something very naughty," Bakura went on. Suddenly, he realized that what had -actually- happened was too gruesome and would frighten his light. Ah, well. Stretching the truth never hurt anyone, right?

"What'd he do?" Ryou asked with the same awestruck look gracing his features.

"Well...you...see," the older one started. "He...he kidnapped the thief king's true love." Bakura nearly gagged. Love? Pathetic.

Ryou was intrigued. "So the pharaoh is the bad guy!" Bakura nodded. "Ooohhh....What's a pharaoh?"

The former king of thieves slapped a hand to his forehead and dragged it down his face. "A pharaoh's like a king...only...more Egyptian...ish."

"Oohh. Okay!" Ryou was beaming again. The corner of Bakura's mouth was twitching again.

"So, Pharaoh Atemu had kidnapped Bakura's lover. This, of course, made Bakura very angry, because no one was allowed to take what was his. So Bakura vowed to one day save his lover from the evil pharaoh's clutches!" At this, the spirit clenched his fist to emphasize his statement and show power. His little light giggled. "The thief king had no idea where his lover had been taken," Bakura said, "but he figured it would be the pharaoh's palace. He didn't know where that was, though. So he rode aimlessly each night and day, under sweltering hot sun and lonely moon. The desert's really cold at night, you know," he informed his hikari, who nodded. "But one day, just as the sun was rising, he saw a glint on the horizon. Do you know what it was?"

"What?!" Ryou asked, excited.

"The pharaoh's palace! So, he cracked the reigns of his horse and went into a full-speed gallop towards the building. The palace was huge, and it got bigger and bigger as he approached it. Finally, when he arrived, he through open the doors--he was super strong, mind you--and marched right over to the pharaoh's throne room. There, he saw the pharaoh, who had is lover in chains and tied by a leash to the foot of his throne! This made Bakura -_very_- angry. He started to run towards his love, but the pharaoh snapped his fingers and had him thrown in the Ra-forsaken dungeons."

Ryou gasped again and jumped up and down a bit. "Then what happened? Tell me tell me tell me!"

"Well, Bakura was a master at lock picking of course, considering the fact that he was the mighty thief king and all. So that night, when the moon shone through the window of his cell, he escaped from the dungeons and snuck back towards the throne room. He was disappointed to find that his lover wasn't there anymore. He decided that the -_evil_- pharaoh would know, so he padded towards the pharaoh's throne room. He creaked the door open slightly and looked inside."

"What'd he find?"

"He saw the pharaoh sleeping in his bed, and on the floor by the window was his lover. So he crept towards the window. His lover was lying down with their back to him, so he put a hand over their mouth so they wouldn't scream. Then, he picked them up and carried them out of the palace! And they got married, and lived happily ever after. And oh yes, Touzoukuou Bakura went on to rule the world! BWAHAHAHA!--with his lover at his side, of course. Owari."

Ryou smiled brightly up at his darker side. "I liked that story, 'Kura! Will you tell it to me again some time?"

"Maybe," Bakura said, standing up. "Now it's late. So go to bed like a good little brat."

Ryou settled himself beneath the covers and looked up at his yami, who was staring off into space again. "Kura, was all of that true?"

Bakura blinked. "Some of it was. Atemu was very evil, bad, stupid, dumb, retarded, mean, bastar--you get the idea."

"Oh," Ryou said, looking down. After a short pause, he looked up again, baffled that Bakura was still standing there. Another question entered his young mind, so he opened his mouth to speak once more. "Kura, what was the name of the thief king's lover?"

"Meh," Bakura grunted, "name 'em whatever your little heart desires."

Ryou stopped to think, looking down again in his concentration. When he brought his eyes back up to face his yami, he had a huge grin plastered on his face. "Ryou," he said.

"What?"

"Ryou," the hikari repeated. "Can their name be Ryou?"

Bakura's mouth opened to speak, but instead he closed it and nodded once. His little light gave one last smile for the night before lying down to sleep. After a minute or so, his darker half sauntered over to his light's resting form, and reached a hand down slowly. He smoothed out Ryou's hair and brought his hand down to the boys cheek, keeping it there for a second or two before pulling away.

"Sleep well, my tenshi," he said quietly. Then, he materialized back into his sanctuary, a genuine smile on his lips for the first time in three thousand years.

-.-.-.:Owari:.-.-.-

DBS: Didja like it? I hope you did. There will never be enough Bakura x Ryou fluff out there. Oh, and just so you know, I'm not trying to make Bakura a pedophile or anything. o.o;

Mink-chan: Sick, sick people....

S.H.: -jumps on Mink-chan's back- n.n

DBS: Review and I'll love you! And remember, constructive criticism, not flames. Until next time! Ja ne, minna-san!


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